diff --git a/pkgs/stdenv/generic/check-meta.nix b/pkgs/stdenv/generic/check-meta.nix
index b754230b0be95..f8d5ef6e0b5d9 100644
--- a/pkgs/stdenv/generic/check-meta.nix
+++ b/pkgs/stdenv/generic/check-meta.nix
@@ -188,7 +188,8 @@ let
     # Weirder stuff that doesn't appear in the documentation?
     knownVulnerabilities = listOf str;
     name = str;
-    version = str;
+    pname = str;
+    version = nullOr str;
     tag = str;
     updateWalker = bool;
     executables = listOf str;
diff --git a/pkgs/stdenv/generic/make-derivation.nix b/pkgs/stdenv/generic/make-derivation.nix
index a11b280b047ee..199286a12507a 100644
--- a/pkgs/stdenv/generic/make-derivation.nix
+++ b/pkgs/stdenv/generic/make-derivation.nix
@@ -286,6 +286,16 @@ in rec {
           # lets have a clean always accessible version here.
           name = attrs.name or "${attrs.pname}-${attrs.version}";
 
+          # Nix only knows of `name` attribute and considers `pname` what parseDrvName
+          # spits out. Unfortunately, that fails to account for many real-life packages
+          # that have variants or dashes followed by number in their name.
+          # Since many of packages in nixpkgs already have pname corresponding
+          # to project name, we will export it here. We will fallback to the parseDrvName
+          # algorithm when pname is not present.
+          # We handle the version similarly.
+          pname = attrs.pname or (builtins.parseDrvName attrs.name).name;
+          version = attrs.version or ((x: if x != "" then x else null) (builtins.parseDrvName attrs.name).version);
+
           # If the packager hasn't specified `outputsToInstall`, choose a default,
           # which is the name of `p.bin or p.out or p`;
           # if he has specified it, it will be overridden below in `// meta`.